Latest Blog Posts

In a recent PopMatters post, I highlighted the importance of the Glasgow music scene – and its historical relevance to the world of music. Like musical hotspots, Seattle and New York—Glasgow possesses the wet weather of one, and the greased-up urban spontaneity of the latter. As such, it should come as no surprise to find that another up and coming Glasgow-based band is rekindling the flame of the 1970s NY punk music scene in 2009.

In particular, I am referring to the quartet, known as Isosceles. A member of the Art Goes Pop music collective, Isosceles’ sound is emblematic of the collective’s moniker. Rickety guitar work is interspersed with a spattering of drums, and lead singer, Jack Valentine’s yelping vocal execution – all of which help position the band nicely between Television and The Modern Lovers.

And just like their forefathers, the foursome is keen to experiment with ironic, self-referential songs. Their second single (and perhaps their catchiest) entitled, “Kitch Bitch” is like a post-modern version of Pulp’s “Common People”, churned out at high speed. While their first single, “Get Your Hands Off’ is a tongue and cheek number that flips the notion that men are sex pests on its gender-bending head, suggesting instead that women are the ones hungry for the bump and grind. However, when Valentine begins to sing, “I said honey, don’t use your sexuality on me”, one starts to realise that his voice is laced with the equivalent of a wink and a snigger. For all of the song’s candour, it is still clear that the boys approach their subject matter with a sense of humour.

Having already supported Scottish stalwarts, Franz Ferdinand on a previous Scottish tour, the boys have already developed a healthy buzz in the area. Personally, my interest in the band grew out of trips to a local coffee shop (referenced in their second single). When I overheard the strapping young gentleman mutter something about his musical career, I felt such a strong compulsion to investigate them. In the year since then, the band have continued to develop their following in the Glasgow music scene, whilst maintaining their humble and erudite personas—saving their energy for their fervent, audience-pleasing shows.

A slightly different version of this V-C-V was originally published on pcmunoz.com on August 9, 2005

Bruce Springsteen has long dealt with intense, powerful subject matter. The characters in his songs are often trying to find their place in life while battling the burdens of fleshly weakness and spiritual frailty, attempting to make sense of the various ties that bind them to people and places.

“Better Days” is the lead-off track from 1992’s Lucky Town, one of the two discs Springsteen simultaneously released that year (the other album was called Human Touch). It was not made in collaboration with the E-Street Band. Much of the relationship-oriented material on the record deals with the idea of renewed hope, after a wrong turn in the recent past. “Better Days”, particularly, seems to be the light at the end of the dark “tunnel of love” Springsteen so thoroughly described in the album which preceded Lucky Town and Human Touch.

The reaction to rapper Kanye West’s interruption of singer Taylor Swift’s MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech had snowballed in interesting ways. Even the President of the United States has called West a “jackass” for taking away Swift’s microphone to praise Beyonce Knowles’ “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” video. Scores of celebrities have criticized his behavior, largely on Twitter. Meanwhile, a whole Internet meme has sprung up around West’s recent behavior. NME.com has assembled a gallery featuring choice samples of Photoshopped images where West inappropriately interrupts several pop culture figures (my personal favorite is the one where he interrupts Super Mario 64). Hell, when I checked Facebook the other day, I noticed a new quiz titled “Where will Kanye interrupt you?”

Now, it’s quite clear to anyone with a basic grasp of manners that West was indeed acting like a jackass, and he quite rightly has since apologized for the incident. Additionally, West’s behavior is a surprise to no one familiar with the rapper. West has become well-known for his attention-grabbing remarks over the years, ranging from stating “George Bush hates black people” during a 2005 benefit concert to support Hurricane Katrina victims, to exclaiming he was “done” with MTV after not winning a single award at the 2007 Video Music Awards, to repeated exaltation of his own genius. Still, this event has exploded into a cultural phenomenon because it illustrates how ridiculous West’s acts of idiocracy have become, and how much of it people will tolerate. You would think he’d stop acting like an idiot by now, but no, there he goes again. And do we really have to put up with this?

Despite being the daughter of a musical legend, Rosanne Cash’s first album wasn’t even released in the United States. Three of the tracks from her second album became hits on country radio, but none of them cracked the Top Ten. Then the firstborn daughter of Johnny and Vivian Cash released the title single from her third album, Seven Year Ache, and a major career began.

The latest entry in the popular Guitar Hero video game series has now hit store shelves, but there has been some public discontent over the game’s playable avatar of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. On September 11th, surviving Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl issued a joint statement expressing that they were “dismayed and very disappointed” that the Cobain avatar could be used to play any song in Guitar Hero 5, not just Nirvana tunes. Meanwhile, Cobain’s widow Courtney Love has been raging on Twitter over the guitarist being included in the game to begin with, claiming Cobain would have loathed the game and that she would sue video game maker Activision over his image use.

Okay, let’s put aside the fact that both Love and Grohl had to give permission for Activision to use Cobain’s image and Nirvana’s music in the first place (making Love’s assertion that she never approved the likeness very odd). More importantly, let’s also push aside the cultural and historical baggage. Yes, Nirvana was the most important rock band of the 1990s, largely due to how it was resolutely spat in the face of rock music convention. Nirvana was at the center of the alternative rock revolution, which by its nature denounced commercial opportunism and despised the corporate music industry machine. Despite his well-documented drug problems, Cobain’s 1994 suicide is often interpreted by rock scholars as the ultimate act of defiance in the face of unwanted stardom. Nirvana does hold a hallowed place in rock history, but the group shouldn’t be treated as a sacred cow, never meant to mingle with the sort of artists they mocked and despised in a blockbuster media product. As a huge Nirvana fan myself, I too am certain that Cobain would have intensely hated his image appearing in the game. Then again, Cobain hated a lot of things, chief among them cleaning his apartment. The inclusion of a playable Kurt Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5 is definitely ill-advised, but it’s not because it devalues everything Nirvana stood for, as Love in particular suggests. It’s ill-advised because it looks utterly stupid.